Wrought Iron Fences
by BugTongue
Summary: Charles does not trust himself, and he distrusts Erik less.


Charles looked up from the paperwork littering his desk as he noticed the presence of someone who had seemed to be resolutely avoiding him for a few days now. Wisely, not without reason, and it set him on edge immediately that Erik should step foot in his office and lock the door behind him without even a wave of his hand.

"You've come to apologize." Charles wheeled himself around from behind the desk, head held so he wasn't exactly looking up at Erik, but there was only so much intimidation he could do from waist height. Erik smiled, a mean little thing that thinned his lips and made his nostrals flare. The look brought with it a sense of amusement and something dark that licked at his mind, somewhere in the more instinctual bits.

"Here i thought you were psychic, are you guessing wrong to make me feel better?" He took a step away from the door, looking over the office with an analytical sweep of his eyes; sliding left, then up along the shelves and around to Charles' feet. Up the wheels, from his hands to his throat, eyes. Head.

Settling there too long.

Charles' grit his teeth, refusing to look away once eye contact has resumed. "If not to apologize," he began, ignoring the jab. And the eyes. "Then to try and kiss me again? I didn't take you for a fool."

"Why are you so against it? I don't have to have your abilities to know its reciprocated. You're too expressive to keep any secrets from me." Erik sneered and it should have been ugly for all it conveyed.

"I don't know what you mean, I thought telling you no would be enough but you are evidently as stubborn in this as with anything else."

"You're evading me. Or, no i think its not me, its you, is that it?" Erik stepped closer again and stood just inches from touching toes with him, tilting his head in a way that might charm others. "Are you making decisions for other people again?"

Charles flared, pupils shrinking as he gripped the arm rests tight enough for bone to press through the thin skin of his hands. "You are- so, so reckless. So quick to throw out your caution, to make bold leaps-"

"-No more reckless than you are cautious-"

"-You think im afraid? Of you?" His mouth twitched before an exasperated grin stretched his lips and bared his teeth, jaw trembling for a moment. Erik leaned in and grabbed the tops of his wheels, close enough so Charles got only warm breath instead of cool, dusty air even with his neck pressing into fabric backing.

"I couldn't intimidate you if I tried, that's the problem. I'm not the threat, I'm not the dangerous one here. I could rend this house apart and wrap you up in the fencing until you asphyxiated on empty lungs but you, you're the one who could make me do it to myself instead-"

"Stop it."

"You could dig into my head and really tell me to leave, make me stop wanting you. I know you can, if you can take away memories then surely you can take the ones that make me so stupid over you-"

PLEASE, STOP.

"Say it then."

Charles glared at him while that darkness wrapped around his throat, lodged itself tightly within. "Its me. I, am the threat. You should fear me, you of all people know best what I can do. Raven, she knows, she left, shes not completely out of her mind. No but you are, you're just so caught up in your deathwish," his stomach flipped when erik's smile softened, and then blurred. "In your loathing for others, for yourself-" he was cut off by a hand holding his jaw, the joints of Erik's fingers digging into the flesh and grinding against bone.

"No, that ones you. No one hates themself like you do Charles, no one is so very fucking afraid of their own abilities in the way that you fear yourself. You make sure of it, thats why you have your school. You're making decisions for me because you care, because youre so damn soft that you think you can hurt me."

Charles glared through a layer of tears, too pissed off and too proud to let them fall, and Erik let go of his jaw to drag the print of his thumb under one eye. It pulled at the skin and coaxed him to blink, to let the tears drop. "Let yourself be sad, old friend. Be angry, be scared-"

He pulled Charles' head back up when the other tried to hide his face. "-but don't continue to hide, not from me. I know what you can do and I don't fear you, so stop protecting me."

I can't have you.

"No you can't, but you can let me have you instead." Erik leaned in again under heavy scrutiny. Until the scrutiny went away, glimmering eyes shut tight in opposition to the way Charles' head lay back and his throat exposed. "Let me have you, let me keep you and know you."

I can't love you. I can't, not how you want me to. I can't stand by you and your choices and watch you tear everything down around us.

Erik smiled."You already do."

He leaned in as if pulled and found himself to be kissing charles, his hand coming up off the wheel to help its pair frame the professor's face. Did you do that?

"Yes." Charles brought his hands up as well to grab the lapels of Erik's jacket, to pull him in and distract further questioning with a more than willing tongue. If Erik was going to pursue him so arogantly then he would get what he asked for. Lips smiled against his, pulling back enough to merely brush and slide as Charles breathed his air.

"You are still speaking into my head, is that how you feel about me?" The wry smirk and the lowered lids were a one-two punch in Charles' gut and all he managed before hauling the man back in was an indignant (and soundly undignified) gasp of shared air.


End file.
